


Lips Not Like Rubies, Eyes Like the Sun

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Fairytale Motifs, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth, Persephone Cycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime and Brienne’s time in the bear pit takes on mythic proportions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lips Not Like Rubies, Eyes Like the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This turned out a bit more snarky-humorous, a bit more la-la-fairytale-y, and a lot more cracky and meta-y than I originally intended. I own nothing.

Once upon a time, there was a man who should have been the greatest knight that ever lived. He had beauty, strength, and skill, but an act committed in his youth branded him a man without honor. So he frittered away his days on things without consequence, cloaked himself in crimson-bright arrogance and gold-soft pride. No one expected him to fight honorably when real blood could be spilled. He won tourneys instead of battles, and almost accepted the world’s judgment of him as the only truth there was or ever would be. 

During the second true war of his life, Jaime Lannister became a captive, his jailer a woman. An ugly woman. An ugly woman who fancied herself an honorable knight. Brienne of Tarth was her name, and the most Jaime Lannister would concede her was that she had lovely eyes. He would pay no homage to her skill with a sword or the strength in her arm, until one day he snatched a sword and a chance to challenge her, her life and his in the balance. 

They fought between the forest and the swift water, from dawn till midday, and neither could best the other. They would have fought until the sun crashed into the sea and scorched the earth clean perhaps, had they been alone. The clash of their swords and the storm wind of their labored breaths deafened them to the approach of others. Not enemies as such, merely men who sought to do harm for harm’s sake. 

While the Lion of Lannister was worth his weight in gold and rubies, Brienne of Tarth came from an island famed chiefly for the quality of its sheep’s wool and the blue of its waters. Those could not ransom her, nor did her sex or her armor offer any protection. The men threw her into a deep, possibly endless pit as a sacrifice to the Lesser Gods. 

“Damn you to the bottom of that pit,” Jaime Lannister raged. “I would have paid you for her. You could have bought a dozen sheep to throw down there!”

“The Lion of Lanithter ith in love!” the leader of the evil men sneered. 

Jaime Lannister squeezed his fists, desiring nothing so much as to stop up the vile man’s mouth with a handful of his own broken teeth. 

“If you love her tho much, go get her.”

So he did. 

Contrary to the opinion of many who had met him and many more who had not, Jaime Lannister was not a handsome fool. He did not simply fling himself into the dark abyss where the Lesser Gods dwelled, armed with nothing but his wits and the clothes he stood up in. He seized one of the evil men’s horses with a spare sword hanging from the saddle and impelled the beast down the pit. The sword caught what little light penetrated the deep and reflected it, turning the darkness around the knight and his horse a pale, bluish grey. 

Jaime had never been a man of books and learning, but he knew better than to expect he could pass unchallenged when he went to cheat the Lesser Gods of a sacrifice. 

Grey and black were the only colors in the pit, so it was not until he practically blundered into it that he realized he was in a cave, the rumble and stench emanating from its depths not just his imagination. He had come upon the first of three guardians every soul foolish or desperate enough to attempt the descent had to face. None had yet returned to tell of their journey, and Jaime Lannister had a moment to consider it very odd how anyone even knew there were _three_ guardians.

Then the bear was upon him. 

It was black and brown and ravenous. It was bigger than any ordinary bear, and older, and hungrier. A long time had passed since some unfortunate had stumbled into its lair. 

The bear roared and charged the knight, a mountain of flesh and fur on four paws. The horse shied and would have bolted, but Jaime squeezed its sides with his knees so it could only dance in place and whinny in terror. Jaime brandished his stolen sword, swung at the bear’s thick neck as he forced the reluctant horse to canter past the charging monster, as though the bear were another knight at a joust, the horse a fine stallion rather than some slaughtered peasant’s dray animal. 

Twice the knight and the bear passed each other. On the third pass, the blade sank deep into the bear’s neck. Its blood, poisoned by centuries of loneliness and hunger, melted the steel until all that was left in Jaime Lannister’s hand was the unadorned hilt, as useless to him as a tin stove to a baker. 

The bear was no less dead for all that. 

The horse would not go past the bear’s carcass no matter how much Jaime applied his spurless feet to its flanks and the sword’s pommel to its withers. Finally he dismounted, seized the reins in his free hand, and dragged the shying animal deeper into the pit. The stench of the bear’s gore and fur followed them down. 

The second guardian was a dragon. 

Jaime Lannister had some experience with madmen who fancied themselves dragons, but he had never had to deal with the real thing. The dragon’s scales looked harder than plate armor, and its wickedly sharp teeth were the length of Jaime’s horse’s leg. Jaime’s sword had melted to nothing in the bear’s blood, and he had no spear or mace. 

“Well now, Ser Jaime?” the dragon said in a surprisingly melodious voice. “What shall you give me in exchange for not eating you?” 

Had the dragon’s giant maw been less crowded with teeth, Jaime almost might have believed the creature was smiling at him. 

“If you are hungry, you can eat my horse,” he said, puffing out his chest, though his right hand shook a little with only a sword hilt in it. 

The dragon was definitely smiling. “I will eat the horse either way.” 

And so it did, in three quick snaps of its bladed jaws, saddle, tack, stirrups, and all. 

“Now what will you give me so I do not eat you as well?”

Jaime considered attempting to jam the sword hilt down the dragon’s gullet or hitting one of the creature’s great, yellow eyes with it, but he suspected this predicament required greater subtlety. 

“I could tell you a story,” he offered, putting on his most charming smile, gambling that the dragon’s lilting voice and love of games denoted a certain femaleness of character. “A true tale of courage and devotion.” 

_Of rashness and folly, more like_ , he thought but did not say. 

The dragon looked intrigued. 

Jaime sat down on a convenient boulder, wondered fleetingly whether it had graced the rumps of others stupid enough to think they could talk their way past a dragon, and told the scaly monster about Brienne of Tarth’s pigheaded nobility, her courage and fortitude, her honor and skill with a sword, her blue eyes and homely face, and how it all paled into insignificance when the world looked upon her through the eyes of men and saw only a woman. A convenient hole at worst, a cheap sacrifice at best. 

The dragon listened, breathed hot air which was not quite fire, and scored the stony floor with its great claws once or twice. 

When Jaime finished telling it about the bear’s death, the dragon neither moved nor spoke. Jaime stood up slowly and started further down the pit.

“Ser Jaime.” The dragon’s voice would have been a soft whisper in a woman’s throat. Coming from a dragon, it shook the dripstone columns hanging from the ceiling. 

Jaime half turned, preparing to fling his sword hilt at the dragon’s eye and retreat hastily down the pit, for all the good that would do him. 

“You tell a good tale,” the dragon murmured thunderously. “But I name you liar. Yours is no tale of courage and devotion, but that rash folly called love. Be true or you will not pass the third guardian with your heart and lungs intact.” 

The dragon said nothing more, seemed disinclined to eat or roast him where he stood, so Jaime continued his descent into the pit.

The third guardian was a she-wolf with a litter of five pups, which bared tiny, sharp teeth at Jaime. Their mother was of only average size, for a wolf. 

“I suppose you want feeding as well, do you?” Jaime asked. He had expected a man-eating giant or a Great Other. Not an ordinary wolf, even if her pups might grow big and fierce one day. 

“You have no horse or companions to feed to my children,” the she-wolf replied, a touch smugly. “Hearts and lungs are good and sinewy for small teeth to grow strong and sharp on. So how will you get past me, Ser Jaime?”

Jaime reflected on the dragon’s words. He thought of Brienne of Tarth, her eyes like the sun rising underwater. He grimaced as he remembered all the stories insisted that only a true sacrifice could redeem one consigned to the pit. 

Jaime dropped the useless sword hilt and held out his right hand, his sword hand. The she-wolf gnawed it off, while Jaime bit his lip and swallowed sharp curses, certain the bitch was taking longer than she needed out of sheer enjoyment, if the glint in her eye was any indication. 

When all he had left in the place of his hand was a bleeding mess of raw meat and jagged bone, he walked on, tottering a little in pain, ignoring the echo of the wolf pups crunching the delicate bones of his hand behind him. 

The Lesser Gods were more amused than annoyed to see a one-handed man appear in their domain, demanding the release of the blue-eyed, stubbornly silent woman sent to them last, waving his maimed arm like a flag of righteousness. What these mortals did not understand and the Lesser Gods were not fools enough to tell them, was that no sacrifice ever guaranteed the desired outcome, however true the offering, however sincere the intent. 

The Lesser Gods gave Jaime Lannister the same boon they’d granted to the few others who had preceded him through the ages of the world: he could walk back the way he had come without looking back, and when he emerged into sunlight or starlight the woman would be with him. If he looked back to see whether she followed, she would be lost to him forever. 

Brienne of Tarth appeared in the deepest, darkest part of the pit, looking somewhat the worse for wear. She gave Jaime a curt nod, one knight to another. 

_Walk and do not look back_ , the nod said. _These gods gamble on the heart’s frailty and the soul’s doubtfulness. But you and I know better._

Or that was what Jaime told himself the nod meant. 

He turned and began the ascent out of the pit. 

He could not have known then that Brienne had faced three tests of her own down in the pit. She had neither expected nor hoped for rescue, yet she had refused the easy temptations the Lesser Gods had cast before her for their amusement, as they did to every fresh, increasingly rare sacrifice during the long, dull ages of the world. 

First a woman with curls like beaten gold and lips like soft rubies appeared before Brienne and offered her a pomegranate split in half, its insides like a bleeding heart, like the woman’s lips, dripping sticky, crimson juice. 

“Take, eat,” the woman said in a tone which was not quite sweet, though it strived for sweetness. There was something of Ser Jaime’s mocking beauty about her, Brienne thought. 

“You must be hungry and thirsty after falling all that way into this wretched pit,” the woman insisted. “Take, the fruit is fresh. The likes of you have never tasted the likes of it. Aren’t you the least bit curious?” 

Brienne was very hungry, her throat was bone dry, but she pressed her lips together and would neither speak nor eat. 

Next a creature appeared which may once have been a woman, though nothing was left of her humanity but chalk-white flesh rent with ancient gashes and a ghastly voice like bitterly cold wind wheezing through cracks in a sheer rock face. She too held a pomegranate in her claw-like hand, thrust it under Brienne’s nose. 

“Eat,” the horror wheezed. “Eat or not, you will stay here forever. You may as well eat. Eternity weighs heavy on an empty heart and an emptier stomach.” 

Still Brienne would neither speak nor eat. 

At the third turn, the Lesser Gods got clever or desperate and sent Brienne her old septa. 

“Stupid child.” Brienne had not heard that voice in years, never missed it. “He won’t come for you. No man would sacrifice himself for a face and a temper like yours. They have treated you better than you deserve down here. Refuse their gifts, and the pit can go much deeper.” 

The pomegranate bled fragrant juice, dripped on the stone floor, seven drops bright as moon’s blood. Brienne nearly spoke then, nearly told the thing which wore her septa’s sour face a few choice things she had overheard in soldiers’ camps, but she bit her lip even as angry breath whistled in her throat, across her tongue, sweet as clean water. Brienne had remained stubborn thus far. She could be stubborn a while longer. 

No sooner had her septa who wasn’t her septa disappeared than the Lesser Gods summoned her. Brienne beheld Ser Jaime Lannister, the end of his sword arm a bloody mess like a chewed-up pomegranate, his face haggard, his eyes still wicked and alive. 

Brienne followed him up, out of the pit. _Don’t look back at me, Jaime. Don’t look back_ , she prayed silently, for she knew all the stories. 

They passed creatures Brienne had not seen before, during her swift plummet into the pit. 

A she-wolf and her pups at their meal. 

Something Brienne guessed was a dragon, though she had never seen a dragon. It winked at her as she passed or that may have been just a trick of the light. Brienne gaped at the creature a moment then hurried after Jaime, trying and failing to step lightly lest he heard her running after him and turned. She kept repeating her wordless prayer as a tether to life and the world, to him. 

She passed a bear’s carcass, stinking with rot and liquefaction. 

Then Brienne saw blue and yellow, sun and sky, and sound rushed in on her like high tide into a sea cave. 

She stood on the lip of the pit with Jaime Lannister. The men who had captured them sneered and mocked and swore, but could do nothing as they two walked away, Brienne still whispering _Don’t look back_ in her mind. 

“Ser Jaime?” she said to stop the silent prayer from driving her quietly mad. “I am grateful, but… Why did you come after me?” 

Jaime considered telling her he had not liked the idea of her eyes lighting up the black pit where no sky nor sun had ever been. 

Or that he had feared her face might frighten the Lesser Gods into becoming the Even Lesser Gods. 

Or reminding her that he was a better knight than she thought, and had taken on an impossible quest to prove his valor and folly. 

Or perhaps that he was a worse knight than she thought, and descending into that pit had seemed like a good idea to prevent his dying of boredom. 

Or merely shoving his stump, blood crusting over the savaged flesh, under her nose and sneering at her.

Brienne’s eyes were like the sky itself watching him, her pupils tiny, golden suns, her cheeks and lips bright red yet nothing like ripe fruit or rubies. Ugly as always, and every bit the knight and woman who merited a descent to the seventh hell, let alone a very deep pit. 

Jaime wondered if the dragon could still hear him, whether it would laugh till the ground shook under their feet or fly up out of the pit and eat him after all, depending on his answer. 

He sighed. “How could I not have come after you?”

“Oh,” Brienne said, looked down at her feet and up at Jaime’s face. Then, her face a sunset conflagration of blushes, she kissed him shyly on the cheek. 

Jaime did sneer at her then, but only a little. “You’ve got your songs all muddled up, Brienne.” And he kissed her on the mouth. 

Eventually they lived happily ever after, but not yet. 

First Jaime claimed that his daring descent into the pit, his slaying of a bear, his standing up to a dragon (which was how he told it, and the ground did not shake to contradict him), and feeding his sword hand to a rabid old she-wolf, not to mention climbing all the way back up on faith alone, merited quite a lot of kisses. 

Brienne rolled her eyes and insisted she was hungry and they ought to get Jaime’s wound salved and bandaged before any further kissing, but she did not dispute his reasoning.


End file.
